Fake Flowers For Cake Decorating

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How to Make Sugar Flowers for Cake Decorations

Learn how to make sugar flowers from pastry chef Amanda Oakleaf in this cake decorating video from Howcast.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Amanda Oakleaf. I am owner, head baker, decorator of Amanda Oakleaf Cakes in Winthrop, Massachusetts where we do custom cakes of all kinds -- wedding cakes, birthday cakes, sculpted cakes. Anything you can think of we can make it into a cake. And today I will be talking to you about cake decorating. And I have fondant and gum paste mix. Fondant to keep it pretty moist while you're working with it. Gum paste dries hard once it has some time to dry. A little bit of cornstarch to keep it from sticking to the table. And for this we want to roll it pretty thin, that will make the flower petals more realistic. So now we have it rolled out, it's pretty thin, that way it will look more realistic once we get it punched out. So we have 4 different sizes of this flower cutter, and that will allow us to get the 4 different layers to really make it frilly. So we'll start with the big one. We'll have the big one and then one of each. And then now we want to frill the edges, because right now we have this cut flat edge and it's really not very exciting once it's stacked up. So we want to have this tool. It's graduated and it comes to a point on the end. And that's the end we want to use to frill the edges. So we just want to roll it back and forth. And it will kind of flatten and ruffle the edges to make it more realistic, more like a real flower petal. So you just want to hold it in one spot. Give it a couple rolls back and forth, and it creates ruffles. And that's what we want to do on every petal. And if you don't have this specific tool, they come in the sets with all of the fondant tools. But if you can't get it you can use a toothpick as well. So once you get all your petals punched out and frilled the edges, wrap up whatever is extra just because you don't want the gum paste to dry out. It drys out very quickly. And then we have a flower shaper as a mold to hold our shape. So there's 2 different sizes. You can kind of pick which one you like. The wider one will make a very open flower, and the smaller one will kind of condense it a little bit more. I think that's what I want. So you want to have the biggest one on the bottom. And I also like, I frilled the edges, you could also add a couple veins just by dragging the pointed end of this tool from the center outwards. And that will even give it some creases to fold by. And then you want a little bit of your glue, which is a mixture of water and meringue powder. And just a little bit of glue on the very inside. You don't want to much glue showing on the outer edges. And then you can kind of pinch in the middle and fold it. There's no special rule. Kind of make it how you want it to look. And make sure they're two stuck together. And then a little bit of glue in the next one. Next size down. So that's our flower, and it needs a little inside. So you can pinch off a little bit of your extra color. I like to make a little ball. A little glue in the very middle. Press that in there. And then to give it a little texture I have a piping tip, and that will give it some texture on the inside. And then you can kind of ruffle the edges, and cover some of it up, and fix it how you like it. And then it will dry. Give it a half an hour/hour to dry and then you can put it on your cake.